constitute the healthy state of the soul, united with a consciousness of this health. The more lively affections invigorate and excite a delectable vivacity, and harmonize the mind with every thing around.' Uneasiness mingles with the benevolence exercised towards the unhappy. But it is more than compensated by the satisfaction of ministering to his relief; or even the desire and effort to do it.' A sufferer in some form or other is within our reach, whom duty permits and inclination prompts us to serve. We feel it in our power to infuse joy into the heart, which is now wrung with sorrow; and kindle smiles in the face, which is saddened by despondence. Compassion enters into his feelings, and makes them partially its own. The sufferer is the just object of our resentment. Mercy suppresses anger, and pleads for his pardon. He is an inferiour in station, wealth, or talents. Condescension makes us wave our distinctions. He is a character to excite prejudice,or censure; and candour does all she can to excuse his faults. To be his friend requires concessions, sacrifices,and toils; and generosity foregoes advantages and pleasures in his favour. If the desire of showing kindness cannot gratify itself by affording substantial relief; if we cannot even speak on the subject of his griefs, yet our manner evinces that they touch our hearts. He sat down in an armed chair by the side of his distressed friend and said nothing.' With these dispositions are any willing to approach the afflicted; and do they find a luxury in their sympathies ? The satisfaction is certainly derived not from the sight of sorrow, but from the exercise of that benevolence, which like mercy blesses him that gives

and him that takes.' Relation and friendship make the evils of another entirely our own. The sufferings are irremediable, or such as we ought not to wish to remedy. Pride, avarice, selfishness withhold our hand. In these cases we derive not pleasure but pain from our access to the unhappy. Necessity or duty alone will keep us within the hearing of his plaints, and the view of his anguish. The Levite, who saw a traveller in a wretched plight, kept on the other side of the road, and passed on. He was not willing to see the affliction, which he was determined not to relieve. There is one exception to these observations, where the victim of misfortune is an interesting character, and suffers in a manner to engage respect and admiration. ( A great and virtuous man, struggling with adversity, is a spectacle, said an ancient philosopher, upon which the gods might look down with pleasure.' He does not mean to intimate that the Deity is cruel, and takes delight in the misery of his creatures; but that he, who bears the evils of life with magnanimity and resignation, possesses a moral pre-eminence, which is worthy the attention of higher orders of intelligences.

The object of our sympathetick emotions is not one, whose condition we can affect. It is a criminal led out to an ignominious death, or men engaged in the tumult and danger of battle, or opposed in deadly combat. It is the narrative of the historian, the tale of the novelist, a picture, a poem, a drama, or a theatrical representation, displaying our fellow beings in situations of trial and distress, or actuated by painful passions; that awaken and enchain our attention. The pleasure we obtain from these is not any delight that we take

in misery; in the disasters, fears, sorrows, and torments of our race. The works of art, that we have mentioned, possess many properties to excite our emotions, besides the sufferings they exhibit. They gratify our love of the grand, the beautiful, the new, the marvellous.

They are often distinguish ed by fertility of allusion, harmony of language, and brightness and force of sentiment. They lead us through regions of enchantment, created by imagination, and embellished with ideal beauties. The chief attraction of this class of objects and representations arises from the interest, we take in the exhibition of human character. We possess what has been denominated a sympathetick curicsity concerning our species. We love to see how beings like ourselves are affected in extraordinary situations and under strong emotions, and to exercise our moral judgment and feelings upon their qualities and conduct. It is not their grief or perturbation, their fear or despair, their perplexity and distress, which fix our attention; but it is these circumstances taken in connection with the qualities they call forth, the energies they awaken, and the degree of correspondence of the language and behaviour of the persons introduced to their character and state. In ordinary life the characters of men are the subjects of constant inquiry and speculation to one another. Children and common people are awake to the expressions of sentiment and feeling in those around them. In uncommon situations men are observed by each other with a proportionate interest. The indications of energetick passion, that is raised by natural causes, are beheld with correspondent emotions. My readers will not complain that

I commit the remainder of this argument to a critick and writer of plays, deeply skilled in the subject.* It cannot be any pleasure we receive from the sufferings of a fellow creature, which attracts such multitudes of people to a publick execution; though it is the horrour we conceive for such a spectacle, that keeps so many more away. To see a human being bearing himself up under such circumstances, or struggling with the terrible apprehensions, which such a situation impresses, must be the powerful incentive, which makes us press forward to behold what we shrink from, and wait with trembling expectation for what we dread. For though at such a spectacle few can get near enough to distinguish the expression of face, or the minuter parts of a criminal's behaviour, yet from a considerable distance will they eagerly mark whether he steps firmly, whether the motion of his body denotes agitation or calmness; and if the wind does but ruffle his garment, they will, even from that change upon the outline of his distant figure, read some expression connected with his dreadful situation. Though there is a greater proportion of people, in whom this strong curiosity will be overcome by other dispositions and motives; though there are many more, who will stay away from such a sight, than will go to it, yet there are very few who will not be eager to converse with a person who has beheld it, and to learn, very minutely, every circumstance connected with it, except the very act itself of inflicting death. To lift up the roof of

See Introductory Discourse to a series of Plays on the Passions, 2d ed. Lon. 1799.

his dungeon, like the Diable boiteux, and look upon a criminal. the night before he suffers, in his stiil hours of privacy, when all that disguise is removed, which respect for the opinion of others imposes, the strong motive by which even the lowest and wickedest of men still continue to be moved, would present an object to the mind of every person, not withheld from it by great timidity of character, more powerfully attractive. than almost any other.' When we behold any person under the pressure of great and uncommon calamity, delicacy and respect for the afflicted will indeed make us turn ourselves aside from observing him, and cast down our eyes in his presence, but the first glance we direct to him will involuntarily be one of the keenest observations, how hastily soever it may be checked; and often will are turning look of inquiry mix itself by stealth with our sympathy and reserve.' What human creature is there, who can behold a being like himself under the violent agitation of

Mr. Editor,

those passions, which all have in some degree experienced, without feeling himself most powerfully excited by the sight? I say, all have experienced; for the bravest man on earth knows what fear is, as well as the coward, and will not refuse to be interested for one under the dominion of this passion, provided there be nothing in the circumstances attending it to create contempt.' The wild tossings of despair; the gnashing of hatred and revenge; the yearnings of affection, and the softened mein of love; all the language of the agitated soul, which every age and na tion understands, is never addressed to the dull nor inattentive.' 'It is to this sympathetick curiosity of our nature, exercised upon mankind in great and trying occasions, and under the influence of the stronger passions, when the grand, the generous, and the terrible attract our attention far more than the base and depraved, that the high and powerfully tragick of every composition is addressed.'

Having been for many years a frequenter of publick places, and, by virtue of my rank in life, admitted to all the most fashionable circles, I have had sundry and excellent opportuities to study the whole theory aud practice of frights and fears; and I have, therefore, no hesitation at all in pronouncing, that the late accident was occasioned-not by pick-pockets-nor by fire-nor by water-but solely by SCREAMING.- --Your readers may exclaim poh! and pish! at this opinion, but I trust they will at the

I repeat it, sir, that the whole mischief was occasioned by Screaming, a genteel accomplishment uusually brought forward in all cases where there is no danger, and generally as carefully suppressed where there is-Now, Sir, I should have no objection whatever to screaming, were it put under due regulations. I am aware that to scream is part of the education of every young lady of fashion: but although it is taught at school along with other species of musick, along with the piano-forte, the harp, the triangle, and the rest of the necessary branches of polite education, I am afraid that the theory and practice of it is very ill understood in some of our genteel seminaries, and therefore very aukwardly performed at home.

The general routine of teaching the art of screaming is to give Miss a few elementary lessons with a spider, or a father-long-legs, placed, first on her arm, and next, if she can go through that lesson with a pretty squall, the creeping intruder is placed on her bosom, although it is well known that a spider had rather see a blue-bottle, than all the bosoms of an Opera-benefit. But this by the bye. As soon as the pupil is perfect in the spider and father-long-legs, she is to be taught to scream at a mouse, and here there are several gradations, for which, I believe, our governesses generally make an extra-charge. First, there is only the report of a mouse, which may pass off with a few Good Lords! or O La!'s. Next the noise of a mouse is heard behind the wainscot, and this generally produces a very promising and tolerably shrill cry-and last ly, the little animal is introduced in propria persona running across

true musical shriek in alt. heard all over the house, bringing up the maids, and perhaps the footmen, to see that it don't come too near the open end of Miss's petticoats, if she happen to be so far undrest as to have any.

From these lessons they are taught to advance pretty rapidly to the highest notes on the scale of screaming (which, like our modern pianos, has got additional keys), and they learn, at the same time (if their parents chuse to go to the expence), the sostenuto, or crescendo, the swell, and all the other graces of exclamation, accompanied with the usual prayers of Oh! L-d; Good G-d; help; murder; fire, &c. all which produce, I will do them the justice to say, a very fine effect in genteel compayy; overturning tables and chairs, spilling boiling water, bruising the lap-dop, or cat, and perhaps throwing a lighted candle on the train of a muslin gown: the father swears, the mother faints, the daughters are in fits, and the company jump about; and in a few minutes, it is unanimously agreed, that there was nothing the matter, but they were so frightened !

Now, Sir, in all this system of education, genteel and useful as it is, there are some small defects. Although the pupil is not only told that screaming in company, or at a publick assembly, is a fine accomplishment, and mighty attractive, but is likewise taught how to scream from the lowest note to the top of her gamut; yet, unfortunately, she is not taught the proper occasions when to scream, and when to sit quiet, nor how elegant outcries should be managed so as to produce only elegant mischief, aukward mistakes, and dress-disordering disclosures

of the dear me ! and bless me ! kind; and other little rumplings and rumpusses, which have a tendency to draw people's attention, and make one be talked of. It is plain that, for want of a due management of the tonnish scream,some people have lost their lives, and others their limbs, which is not a very pleasant circumstance; and however we may speculate on such matters, there is really no affectation, and nothing graceful in dislocations, or compound fractures. How horrid, Mr. Editor, to think! instead of a gay Colonel, or a dozen of Bond-street beaux, hanging over one with hartshorn, eau-de-luce, and burnt feathers to have a filthy Coroner, and his dozen of jurymen, pawing one about, nobody knows where, to find out a verdict !

I would therefore, Sir, recom. mend it to those Governesses, who teach frights by the quarter, to consider, whether it may not be possible to reduce the science of screaming to some decent regulations: for example, to teach their pupils that an ear-wig may be killed without ringing the family tocsin, and that a mouse may be caught without a posse comitatus of ushers, teachers, nurses, and servants roused from their four-pairof-stairs beds, and armed with flat candlesticks, pokers, and pewter pots. They may also, while they preserve the privilege of screaming in full force, hint to their pupils, that it would be as well, if violent outcries, and sentimental timidities, were confined to domestick circles, or ladies' routs at farthest. Among friends such things are very becoming, and added to the equally genteel accomplishment of fits, faintings, &c. give a grace, and a Je ne sçai quoi to the young votaries of artificial manners. But in publick places, where

there are always a great many of that class, whom nobody knows, there is less room for the display of graceful timidity; and the scream, or even a chorus of screams, has too much the appearance of what passes among the vulgar, when they see a man just going to be hanged, or to leap out of a window, or fall from a scaffold, or any of these things,which are performed without an attention to the laws of etiquette, the musick of the voice, or the graces of attitude.

I beg, however, that in thus endeavouring to limit the practice of screaming, I may not be thought to argue against that genteel cowardice and beautiful timidity, those captivating fears, and interesting alarms, which have long been the privilege of well-bred persons. I would not for the world strip them of such terrours, as create a pleasing variety in the display of beauty, which are so ingeniously taught at schools, and encouraged by the perusal of novels, containing long galleries, blue lights, dark chambers, deep dungeons, and ghastly spectres. I argue against nothing of the kind, from a shriek to a convulsion, that can be practised with eclat in company, and graced by the usual accomplishments of chalked floors, and variegated lamps, displayed in festoons with infinite taste, and glimmering among evergreens. for is, that where there is real danger, they will sit still and reserve the scream, the shriek, and the higher octaves of exclamation, for the amusement of confidential parties, where the sudden shutting of a door, the falling of a screen, the approach of a ravisher, or other,such elegant timidities may be worked up into a fit, heightened by vociferation, and decorated with all the attitudes of the Grecian costume.

All I contend

Yours,&c. A QUIET SOUL.